WUNRN
Also via Human Rights Without
Frontiers
SOMALIA - GIRL AGE 17 ABUSED BY
FAMILY FOR LEAVING ISLAM
Young Christian girl convert beaten, shackled to tree.
NAIROBI,
Kenya, June 15 (CDN) — The Muslim parents
of a 17-year-old Somali girl who converted to Christianity severely beat her
for leaving Islam and have regularly shackled her to a tree at their home for
more than a month, Christian sources said.
Nurta Mohamed Farah of Bardher, Gedo Region in southern Somalia, has been
confined to her home since May 10, when her family found out that she had
embraced Christianity, said a Christian leader who visited the area.
“When the woman’s family found out that she converted to Christianity, she was
beaten badly but insisted on her new-found religion,” said the source on
condition of anonymity.
Her parents also took her to a doctor who prescribed medication for a “mental
illness,” he said. Alarmed by her determination to keep her faith, her father,
Hassan Kafi Ilmi, and mother, Hawo Godane Haf, decided she had gone crazy and
forced her to take the prescribed medication, but it had no effect in swaying
her from her faith, the source said.
Traditionally, he added, many Somalis believe the Quran cures the sick,
especially the mentally ill, so the Islamic scripture is continually recited to
her twice a week.
“The girl is very sick and undergoing intense suffering,” he said.
Her suffering began after she declined her family’s offer of forgiveness in
exchange for renouncing Christianity, the source said. The confinement began
after the medication and punishments failed.
The tiny, shaken Christian community in Gedo Region reports that the girl is
shackled to a tree by day and is put in a small, dark room at night, he said.
“There is little the community can do about her condition, which is very bad,
but I have advised our community leader to keep monitoring her condition but
not to meddle for their own safety,” the source told Compass. “We need prayers
and human advocacy for such inhuman acts, and for freedom of religion for the
Somali people.”
Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government generally did not enforce protection
of religious freedom found in the Transitional Federal Charter, according to
the U.S. Department of State’s 2009 International Religious Freedom Report.
“Non-Muslims who practiced their religion openly faced occasional societal
harassment,” the report stated. “Conversion from Islam to another religion was
considered socially unacceptable. Those suspected of conversion faced
harassment or even death from members of their community.”
================================================================
To contact the list administrator, or to leave the list, send an email to: wunrn_listserve-request@lists.wunrn.com.
Thank you.